


Are We There Yet?

by thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey



Series: In-Between Scenes [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fun, Gen, Hoverbike, Humor, Road Trip, Time - Freeform, burned fingers, just comedic good times in good old season one, long drive, not much danger or angst in this one, snake - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 16:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey/pseuds/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey
Summary: "Patience yields focus. Patience yields focus. Patience- screw it."Team Voltron's long drive across the desert from the Garrison camp to Keith's house, punctuated by humor, snarking, and good-old grumpy Keith.





	Are We There Yet?

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note: this whole fanfiction is based on the thought that it was a long drive from rescuing Shiro to getting to Keith’s shack. I came to this conclusion due to the sun’s position when they left Keith’s house and the sun position when they arrived at the caves.

“Are we there yet?” Silence for a couple more seconds. “Are we there yet?”

Keith gritted his teeth, trying to ignore his obnoxious passenger. It wasn’t easy. He’d been asking his question since the instant they’d stopped falling down the cliff, except for a brief time period when the big guy had been throwing up over the side of the bike.

“Are we there yet?”

Keith slammed on the brakes of his hoverbike, throwing the small one and the big guy off of the bike completely. The obnoxious cargo pilot- what was his name, Lance? Yeah, Lance- somehow managed to stay on the bike, to his chagrin, grabbing onto the unconscious Shiro before he could slide off.

“No!” Keith shouted, “To answer your five-hundred-and-thirty-fourth time asking, we are _not_ there yet, and we _won’t_ be for a while! If we were _there_ yet, I wouldn’t be _driving the bike further into the desert_!”

“Geeze,” Lance grumbled, repositioning himself on the bike and settling Shiro in further, “ _Someone_ is feeling grumpy.”

“Yeah,” the short one muttered, hauling himself onto the bike, “You didn’t have to knock the rest of us off of the bike.”

Keith took a deep breath in as the big guy nearly took off a wing getting back on. _Patience yields focus. Patience yields focus. Patience- screw it._ “Okay, everybody off! Go away! Go back home! Stop hitchhiking on my bike!”

“What?!” the big guy exclaimed, “But we’ve been driving for hours! We can’t walk all of that way in the desert!”

“Should have thought of that before you invited yourself onto the hover bike of a complete stranger! Off!”

“You’re not a stranger, Keith! We were all in the same flight group!”

The short one muttered something that as far as Keith could tell was “well, _I_ wasn’t, but who cares about me?”

Keith cocked his head inquisitively at the big guy. Another one? From his old flight group? The only one he remembered was what’s-his-face. Floppy-hair McJerkface. Dragon? Hydra? No, Griffin. And this certainly wasn’t Griffin. “Who are you?”

The big guy held out a hand. “Hunk Garret. Please, don’t make us leave. If you do, who’s going to hold Shiro? He’ll fall off.”

Keith ignored the hand. “Fine. You can stay. The short one and Mr. Cargo Pilot go.”

Lance bristled. “I’m not a cargo pilot! I’m a fighter class,-”

“Thanks to me washing out, I _know_ , now get walking. It’s a long hike back to the Garrison.”

“Come on, Keith!”

“Stop calling me Keith like you know me!”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Fine. Would you prefer this? KOGANE!” he bellowed in perfect imitation of Iverson. It took all of Keith’s willpower not to snap to attention and bark “yes sir” back. He pointed to the desert instead.

“I wasn’t kidding. Go back. The desert gets hot in the day. You don’t want to be caught out in the afternoon heat. Big guy- Hunk- come on. We’re getting Shiro safe, and then I’m dropping you back off in town.”

He got on his hoverbike and revved the engine. It coughed and then failed. A loud _bang_ came from somewhere in the back, and Keith jumped off of the bike, muttering angrily to himself.

He reached for a panel on one of the back jets, grabbing it and then letting go with a hiss, instinctively putting his fingers in his mouth. That was _hot_! He shook his hand. His glove had protected most of his hands from the heat, but his fingers felt the searing pain.

Carefully using only the heel of his hand, Keith pushed up the panel, and a cloud of black smoke billowed out. He coughed, holding one jacket sleeve up to his mouth and nose, and waved the smoke away with his free hand. He peered at the inside.

“What the…”

“Wow, your bike is a piece of junk,” Lance remarked cheerfully.

Keith looked more closely. “A stabilizer is broken.” He glared at Hunk, Lance and the small one. “Probably because I’ve been carrying more people than the bike is supposed to carry.”

Hunk looked suitably ashamed. The other two did not. Keith ducked under the bike, taking a look at the broken stabilizer. “Great.” He opened a compartment on his bike and yanked out his toolbox, poking his head into the panel with the broken stabilizer. Honestly, it looked completely shot. He had a replacement back at his shack, but it was a long hike to get there.

Hunk poked his head over Keith’s shoulder, peering at the bike’s stabilizer. “I can fix this. Temporarily, anyway. You need a new one, but I can fix it enough that we can make it to town to get a replacement. I’m an engineer,” he explained at Keith’s confused face, “Am. Was. Hopefully still am, unless the Garrison’s kicked me out by now. Oops.”

Keith weighed his options. Option number one: Leave Shiro with these probably-ex-cadets, hike across the desert, find his spare stabilizer and lug it all of the way across the desert. He’d just have to hope that Shiro didn’t wake up, the cadets didn’t run off, and that he would make it across the desert on foot. Option number two: Have the small one drag Shiro across the desert and enlist the other two to lift his bike and help him carry it across the desert. Yeah, with Lance’s complaining disposition, that wasn’t likely. Option number three: he trust Hunk to fix his hoverbike and then hope the Garrison didn’t have security footage of his face and hadn’t pasted his face on every channel along with the words “wanted for abduction.” Right. Trusting someone. Option one was looking more and more attractive as he thought about it.

The small one grabbed his arm and yanking him away from the hoverbike with surprising strength. “Just move. Hunk knows what he’s doing.”

“Hey-!”

“I really do,” Hunk called back, “Just trust me!”

Keith paced up and down to the sound of Lance asking if they were done yet, poking his head under the hoverbike and asking Hunk and the small one questions about what they were doing until the small one told him to “Shut up and go away!” because he worked better without interruptions.

They finally finished and Hunk dusted his hands off. “There. Should be good enough to take us to town. Get a new stabilizer.”

“Fine. Get on the bike. Tiny guy, you keep hold of Shiro.”

Keith hopped onto his seat and revved the engine, which coughed, but hummed, the bike rising into the air. Keith glanced at his in-bike compass and turned his bike to face town which was, unfortunately, closer than his desert home.

Stabilizers weren’t too much, but it cost far more than Keith would have liked. After snapping at Hunk to _back off, he could replace his own stabilizer_ , Keith got to work under the hoverbike. It didn’t take long to replace, maybe half an hour, but it felt like ages. Keith yawned, stretching. He did _not_ fancy making it all the way back across the desert. Hunk, Pidge and Lance had strapped themselves and Shiro to the bike, making it possible for them to sleep without falling off of the bike. Keith didn’t have that luxury.

Two golden arches caught his eye, and he rummaged around in his pockets. The stabilizer had pretty much wiped out his pocket cash, but he did have a couple of dollars left…

“One large coffee, please.”

The worker behind the counter blinked at the hoverbike outside and the load of people on it. “Um…”

“Hey? One large coffee, please.”

The worker snapped out of it. “Right. Okay. Um. Your total will be $1.75. Hold on for just a moment, sir.”

Keith almost sniggered at the use of the word ‘sir’ to refer to _him_ , but managed not to. The worker didn’t seem like she was paying much attention to his order, more the hoverbike, and he sighed, wishing that he’d just walked in and not driven the hoverbike.

“Here you are. Can I get you anything else?”

“No, thanks.”

The employee shifted from one foot to the other before bursting out. “Excuse me, sir, but on that hoverbike- is that Takashi Shirogane?”

Keith raised one eyebrow as he took a sip of his coffee, keeping a deadpan face. “I thought he was dead.”

He turned around and walked out, the worker behind him muttering. “Yeah. Right. He’s dead. Late night shift is getting to me.”

But Keith heard a phone camera click, and his phone buzzed with a notification from one of the online conspiracy boards titled “Takeshi Shirogane: Dead, or Government Coverup?” It was quickly followed by about fifty more buzzes.

Xxx

Something was wrong. Keith frowned as he drove across the desert. Something was different. Off.

After a couple of seconds, he realized that he hadn’t heard anything from the back for nearly an hour. He’d gotten used to Lance’s constant inquiry, and when the annoying probably-ex-cadet had dropped off to sleep, the silence had been unnerving.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!”

Keith jumped as Lance’s scream came from behind him, slamming on the brakes. The resulting yank woke everyone except Shiro up, and nearly threw Keith over the front of the bike.

“WHAT WAS THAT?!” he shouted at Lance.

“I woke up, and my legs had fallen asleep and got pins and needles.”

 _Patience yields focus. Patience yields focus. Patience yields focus_.

Keith turned the bike off completely, and it settled down to the ground. “Okay. Everybody stretch your legs. Five minute break.”

Lance unstrapped himself and stretched, sauntering out into the desert. Keith turned back towards the others.

“I’m leaving him behind.”

“Don’t you dare,” Hunk murmured sleepily, unstrapping himself and wandering off after his friend. The small on stayed behind, perched on the bike behind Keith.

“Why are you still here?”

“I’m making sure that you don’t run off into the desert without us,” he said simply.

“If I were to leave you out here, it would be an eight hour walk back to civilization. The sun comes out in six hours. Looking at the three of you, I’m pretty sure that would effectively kill you. Whatever Lance has told you, I’m not a murderer.”

“Geeze, how long have we been driving?”

Keith counted up the hours on his fingers. “We left the Garrison encampment about three hours ago, at ten-o-clock. Normally, that’s how long it takes me to make that trip total, but what with chases, broken stabilizers and now this stop, it’s taking twice as long.”

“Oh.” They sat in silence. “I’m Pidge, by the way. Pidge Gunderson.”

“Keith Kogane.”

Pidge’s face wrinkled in amusement. “I know.” He looked at Keith curiously. “Are your fingers okay?”

“My fingers?”

“Yeah. That panel looked really hot. And you jerked away pretty fast. Are your fingers okay? I mean, you’ve got those gloves, but they only cover your hands, and since they don’t cover your fingers and you put your fingers in your mouth it just looked pretty painful and- I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. You are.”

“Sorry. So, are they?”

“Are who what?”

“Are your fingers okay!”

“Oh. Yeah. They’re fine.” In truth, they itched and had blisters that throbbed and chafed on the hoverbike handles, but he wasn’t going to tell a total stranger that.

“Really? Let me see?”

“No—”

Pidge grabbed his wrist and shone a flashlight app on his hands. “Yeah, they look _great_ , Keith.”

“They don’t hurt. ‘sides, it doesn’t matter if they do. We can’t do anything about it out here. I’ll wait.”

“Hold on a sec, I think I’ve got—” Pidge rummaged around in his backpack, finally pulling out a little tube and a package of band-aids. “Anti-bacterial,” he explained, “You don’t want to get an infection.”

“Pidge, I don’t need—”

“Oh, shush. You're driving us at high speeds across the desert. I don't want your hands failing on the controls because you refused help.”

Pidge seized his hand, and he winced in anticipation of how roughly he would put the cream on. But his hands were gentle, and the cream was cold on his burns, soothing them. He glanced at Pidge, who plastered smiley-face band-aids on his fingers. He blinked. Wait. Pidge- Pidge was a girl. Keith had yet to meet a teenaged guy who brought medical supplies in his backpack. Granted, Keith hadn’t met many teenagers, guys or girls.

“I- I shouldn’t know you, right? I mean, Hunk and Lance apparently know me, but- um—”

“No. Never met you before in my life.”

“Oh. Good.” It would be far more awkward if he _should_ know that Pidge was a girl and had forgotten.

A high-pitched scream came across the desert, and Keith pricked up. “What—”

“Lance,” Pidge said immediately, sliding down the side of the hoverbike and sprinting across the sand. “C’mon, he’s in danger!”

“He screamed when he woke up with pins and needles in his legs,” Keith grumbled, but followed her.

Lance was standing stock still, a rattlesnake hissing at him and rattling its tail. Keith saw the edge of a burrow near Lance’s foot, and glimpsed eggs inside. Hunk was freaking out a few feet away, and Pidge was trying her best to calm him down.

“Lance,” Keith said slowly, “Back towards me. _Slowly_.”

“No, nope, nopity-nope-nope. If I move, that thing is going to bite me.”

“Lance, it’s going to bite you if you keep standing there. If you move, it’s less likely that you’ll die. Now. Back towards me, slowly. It doesn’t _want_ to bite you, but it will if you don’t get away from its nest.”

Lance shook his head, frozen. Keith watched the snake warily. “Lance, I’m coming towards you, okay? Don’t freak.”

He came cautiously towards his old flightmate. “Okay. Ready- set—” He grabbed the back of Lance’s jacket with his left hand and yanked him backwards, at the same time pulling his knife out of his sheath with his right hand and throwing it with a _whirr_ at the snake, which had lunged at the same time.

A decapitated snake head dropped to the ground, and Keith retrieved his knife. He turned to Lance, who was seated on the ground where Keith had thrown him, blinking. “Did it bite you?”

Lance shook his head, for once seeming to be at a loss for words.

“Good. Don’t wander off so far next time, and watch where you’re putting your feet.” Keith glanced at the sky. “Let’s go. We need to get back on the bike.”

Within another hour, this one without any questions from Lance, who seemed to be trying to recover from shock, they were at Keith’s house. He parked his hoverbike and got Shiro down, carrying him into the house and putting him on the only bed. His muscles trembled, but he forced himself to stay up. Pidge, Hunk and Lance had spread out on the floor and Lance (apparently recovered from his bout of near-death-experience shock, and without even a “thank you for saving my life”) and Pidge were already snoring. Keith yawned, which didn’t go by the still-awake Hunk.

“Hey, are you going to get some shut-eye?”

“Nah. I’m good.”

“Keith, it’s—” Hunk yawned. “It’s two-o-clock in the morning. You need to go to sleep.”

“I’ve got to wait up for Shiro. I don’t want him to be alone when he wakes up.” Keith turned to go.

“Keith? What do you think happened out there? What do you think the thing that brought Shiro was?”

Keith hesitated. He didn’t feel like whipping out his conspiracy board just yet. But Shiro’s arm… he shook himself. “I don’t know.”

“Pidge thinks it’s aliens,” Hunk yawned, reaching for Pidge’s backpack. He muttered something about a candy bar, but Keith didn’t hear him.

 _Aliens_.

Keith settled into a chair next to Shiro, hoping the drug would wear off soon. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could stay up.

Xxx

Shiro was warm. There was a blanket draped over him, and he forced himself to open his eyes. Where was he? Certainly not in a sterile Garrison camp. He glanced to the side, and saw Keith, wrapped up in a blanket and dozing in a chair, still in his red jacket. Shiro smiled. Had the Garrison released him? He didn’t imagine so, and that probably meant… probably meant that Keith was stealing things again. First a car, now a person.

Shiro sat up, the blanket sliding off of him, and looked in a closet. Keith had some old clothes that he’d let Shiro borrow once, when an unfortunate accident with hoverbike had shredded his shirt. He found them and slipped them on, not willing to be in the prison uniform- prison uniform, how did he know that?- any longer.

He padded softly into the other room, blinking in confusion at the three teenagers snoring on the floor. Okay. Keith had new friends? Unlikely. Who were they and where had they come from?

Shiro shook his head, pushing the door open and wandering outside. He wandered up the slope of a sand dune, trying to sort out his thoughts. He was having a hard time remembering.

 _Can’t put a scrambled egg back together_ , he thought wryly.

The grey sky was starting to lighten, and Shiro judged the time to be about seven in the morning. Keith never slept in past six-thirty, and Shiro suspected that he’d been up late, waiting for Shiro to wake up.

Behind him, the door opened and shut again, and Keith’s footsteps came up behind him. Shiro took in a deep breath, watching the sunrise. It was a new day.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm looking to maybe do more of these in-between the scenes fanfictions, but can't think of any off of the top of my head, so if anyone's got a request/suggestion of an in-between time period in the show, ask/tell me in the comments. I'd love to hear from you guys!


End file.
